James' review of C London (formerly Cipriani)

One of our party of 10 goes to Ciprianis from to time to time so to celebrate winning at the races we went to Ciprianis.

Servcie – We were hassled to take our seats and rushed to order so we had to tell the numerous waiters who were buzzing around to go away. The way the waiters spoke to us one would think they were paying for our services. During the meal they made a point of opening and pouring as many bottles of water as possible until they were finally told to stop. At the end of the meal 3 of the group were told that they could not have coffee as the bill (large) had been settled. Eventually we agreed to pay cash for the coffee separately.

Food – run of the mill. I ordered Swordfish. It was fried with some oil on the plate and some green scenery. I like swordfish and was fine – but i was disappointed that they had not made any effort to make it more exciting. The person next to me had ordered a pasta dish which sounded very interesting – it turned out to be a small mound of tagliatelle with a pesto sauce – fine but again nothing special and not what one would expect of a top restaurant. Dessert – all that I saw was meringue based and I love meringue so dessert was great! The lemon meringue pie was very well done.

Atmosphere – there were too many waiters – like gnats they were everywhere!!

Value – For a top restaurant the price is fine. For what you get here it's really disappointing.

Overall – uninteresting food and far too many very important waiters.